Anpanman Museum

Posted on 2014/11/16 07:41:32 (November 2014).

[Wednesday 5th November 2014]
I think today may well have been the highlight of the whole trip for Erika - we took her to the Anpanman Museum in Fukuoka. She spent what felt like the first 30 minutes pretty much constantly saying "Anpanman! Anpanman!" which I took to be an expression of delight.

Although it's called a "museum" it's really a sort of indoor theme park for toddlers. There were also some live shows which involved people dressed up as the various Anpanman characters singing and dancing, which Erika seemed rather enthralled by, and endearingly joined in with some of the dancing.

It would probably not be unfair to say the whole thing was a fairly calculated exercise in extracting as much money from doting parents as physically possible, with Anpanman merchandise in every conceivable shape and form at pretty much every turn, but Erika seemed to love it (with the possible exception of her encounter with "Horrorman", who not unsurpsisingly provoked a bout of tears) so I didn't care.

It was not an easy task to get Erika to believe, but a further bit of well thought out strategy by the marketers at Anpanman Inc. - a balloon stand near the exit - allowed us to bribe our way back into the real world again.

Not long after leaving, following all the excitement, Erika fell asleep in her buggy, giving Chie and I the opportunity for a nice quiet lunch (Erika having already eaten various Anpanman themed comestibles in the museum earlier).

Thanks to my recommendations in Google Maps, I discovered another branch of Hirao nearby, the tempura place Ai-san had taken us to on a previous visit to Fukuoka.

After that we headed back to Hakata (the main station in Fukuoka, not sure why it isn't just called Fukuoka station) and got the shinkansen back to Hiroshima.

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